Destigmatizing Former Prisoners
May 10, 2016
5/10/16 – As part of a series of articles in Issues on the problems of and solutions to mass incarceration in the United States, one pair of authors proposed an array of ways to help the large number of people already in the criminal justice system successfully reenter society. In a new approach described here and here, one federal initiative is working to change the vocabulary used when speaking about people who have served time, avoiding stigmatizing labels such as “felon” or “convict” in favor of recognizing them as human beings and fellow citizens worthy of being back in society.